I realize i've been away for a while but what is the meaning of the disclaimer
at the bottom of your postings?
Such as this?
> Copyright (c) Fintan Mary Dunne 1998.
> No reproduction without prior permission.
Or this?
> From: The Metaphysics of Meaning: MoM. Post to Lila Squad 19/Nov98
> MoM and the above definitions Copyright (c) Fintan Mary Dunne 1998.
> No reproduction execpt within the Lila Squad for research and development.
Perhaps we should all consult attorneys? Perhaps we should all include
licensing agreements with our posts? Perhaps we should all think carefully then
discus what we want to say with an attorney, or better yet with a team
attorneys, then drafted in appropriate legal double-speak... Are these lengthy
exerpts from a published or titled work?
Does anyone else have an opinion about the nature of this discussion group? I
have always assumed that this is a public forum. Intellectual Patterns are
discussed here for the edification and dissemination of all concerned aren't
they? Who speaks for freedom? Is this really neccessary?
Glen Dickey
Fintan Dunne wrote:
>
> IN WHICH FINTAN WARNS OF THE RISKS AND
> REWARDS OF MAKING A BARGAIN WITH GOD
> AND ILLUMINATES WHERE HE IS COMING FROM
>
> The Bargain with God
> ----------------------------------
>
> When the guys and I get into a car- any car, it is debatable whether
> any of us will get out of it alive. Martin, who is in the front passenger seat,
> has written off three cars in the last eighteen months. He buys
> replacements from the proceeds of his daily gambling on horses; often
> collecting thousands during lunch breaks from school. I help him pick
> winners under the desk during class.
>
> Damien- who is driving, is a motor mechanic and rally driver with a
> penchant for fast women and faster cars. He pulls out of the line of traffic
> we're in and begins to accelerate. He will need to overtake three cars and a
> bus in the 300 yards before we hit the notorious Mary's Field "S" bend that
> awaits us at the end of this straight section of road. I feel the G-force
> squeeze me back into the rear seat cushion.
>
> Beside me in the back are Paul and James. It will be we three who
> some years later will make the big breakthrough in the murder hunt for the
> killers of Damien's girlfriend Liz. The two Englishmen will tie her body to
> a lawnmower and row out to sea in front of picturesque sandy Brittas Bay,
> where they will dump her to eventually work her way free and wash up
> fifty miles away in Waterford. But long before she is found they will be
> arrested ourside a dancehall in western Ireland awaiting another victim.
> James will be the one who gives the evidence in court that helps put them
> in Mountjoy Jail- where they are to this day.
>
> Damien passes the first car doing 60 mph, and I lean my head back
> onto the rear parcel shelf so I can see the stars overhead out of the inclined
> rear window of the GM Opel coupe. The talk in the car is of who will get
> off with which girl, where we will drink and what disco we will go to later,
> but I switch off; I'm not that interested. Damien passes the second car.
>
> 'What's your problem, Fintan,' he berated me once when a little drunk,
> 'are you queer or what?'
> No Damien........not 'queer', more like......'strange'.
> Not wierd strange, just strange like one of those sub-atomic particles
> that twist and whirl in the inner landscape of a hydrogen atom. Yeah, that's
> it. I'm a strange little particle in orbit.
>
> Now Damien is passing the bus at 75mph as I focus on the Milky Way
> above our car and whisper 'Anything.'
> It's not the first time I have used that word. Last time, I shouted it
> from the hills above the family home at the foot of the Dublin mountains.
> 'I'll give anything, Ok, you can have my life,' I roared at the sky.
> Strange behaviour.
> Because, as an athiest I believed that nothing followed the extinction
> of life. Yet I was prepared to offer my young life for.....
> For what?
> For Knowledge! That's what.
>
> I recal the first time it really struck home to me that death was
> followed by oblivion. That my own precious life could be so mercilessly
> extinguished. I fled to my bedroom and sobbed for hours. Unfair. Horrible.
> This I, this me's body- in which I live, to be just snuffed out! No further
> existence? Just an End!
>
> I cried myself to sleep night after night.
>
> I didn't just haunt my dreams. It haunted one of my LSD trips too. On
> one such trip I found myself super-conscious of a universe like a Giant
> machine. A merciless machine that not only had matter as grist to it's mill,
> but had people too. Life, death, matter, energy, round and round, ground
> and ground, grind and grind, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, must to must,
> over and over. It was chilling.
>
> It wasn't just self-pity that was wracking me, though that was
> certainly there.
> I loved people. Every one of them. And they all would die. It was
> gruesome. I knew I was a repositry of the best in humanity, despite my
> faults. I knew myself for the gracious child of the universe I was. It was
> unthinkable that such as I could simply........be ended.
> But what was even more unbearable was that this should happen
> without my knowing why!
> I had all the intense curiousity of the committed scientist- even as a
> child. I just had to know. Had to Know!
>
> So.
> I came up with a plan.
>
> A bargain with a God I didn't believe in. A bargain with the Universe.
> An offer that 'It' or 'He' couldn't refuse. I was ready to offer the only thing
> I had- in exchange for the Knowledge. I was ready to offer my life.
> To me it was worth it. Ok, after the Knowledge would come
> complete extinction. Obliteration. But, I would KNOW!
> It was worth it. Well worth it.
> So I made the offer again and again. I screamed it. I begged it. Prayed
> it.
>
> Or whisper it, as now, while Damien passses the last car at 85mph, I
> lean my head back to look at at the stars and I whisper it: 'anything, I'll
> give anything.'
> Strange for an atheist to be making a bargain with a God he doesn't
> believe in. And I never knew if He or It was listening.
>
> But he was.
> The old Bastard.
>
> Hang on. I'm not blaspheming. I call Him the 'old bastard' as a term of
> affection- mixed with a pretended long-redeemed rancour. I can presume
> to call him that because now we are on rather good terms with each other.
>
> Y'see he WAS listening. All the time. And this is why I have to warn
> you about making bargains with God. The old bastard holds you to them
> y'see. If you say you are prepared to give 'anything', then He holds you to
> your word.
>
> James used to tell a great joke that went like this:
> 'To the woods!': uttered in a deep commanding male voice.
> 'Oh no, not the woods': in a light feminine voice.
> 'To the woods!': in an even harsher male voice.
> 'No...no, anything but the woods': in a pleading feminine voice.
> 'Any....thing?': in a slow sly interrogative male voice.
> 'To the woods......': with feminine resignation.
>
> If I had known what my offer of 'anything' would mean I might never
> have made that bargain with God. The price of knowledge of the secret
> workings of the universe is high. Or rather, it seems high when you are
> living through the suffering.
> But boy, does God deliver.
>
> I can't fault Him. The knowledge given me is certain. The picture He
> has slowly revealed to me has a coherence and aesthetic beauty that is
> compelling- once you have seen it. And I have seen it. Believe me, for I
> have paid my entry fee at the door on the way in.
> So, be carefull what bargains you make with God.
> But boy, does He deliver.
>
> Past the last car now. Took longer than Damien expected, and we
> have only fifty yards in which to slow from 90mph for this bend which
> been the scene of many accidents. He leans hard on the brakes.
> Unfortunately, a puncture earlier that day menas it is the spare type that is
> on the front right wheel, and this alters the braking behaviour.
> The tyre begins to skid and the car twists to one side. The lights of
> oncoming cars can be seen coming through the 'S' bend against us. We are
> still on the wrong side of the road.
>
> I was in the back when we had the last accident too, and that time I
> just scrunched down and hoped for the best. But this time, I know that in
> the seat in front of me Martin is not wearing a seatbelt, so I sweep my
> arms around his neck and grip hard in the seconds we have left. I must be
> developing an altruistic streak.
>
> Damiens' hands are a flurry of action on the steering wheel. His foot
> rapidly pumps and releases the brake repeatedly. The car snakes and
> twists. The lights of an oncoming car loom and then vanish. We are tossed
> around inside. A wall appears, then lights of another car, then we come
> out of the far side of the 'S' bend- still on the wrong side of the road and
> travelling at about 50mph. The road ahead is empty.
>
> "Yeeee...haaaaah !," roars Damien in mad exhultation and goes on to
> give us a blow by blow account of how he managed to avoid all the
> collisions. I relax my grip around Martin's neck and slump back in the seat.
>
> Crazy bastard!
>
> No.....not You, God. I meant Damien.
>
> "Somebody up there must like us," says Martin.
>
> Yes Martin, though I don't realise it yet.............He must.
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Copyright (c) Fintan Mary Dunne 1998.
> No reproduction without prior permission.
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> The METAPHYSICS OF MEANING (MoM) says that Pattern Recognition
> Algorithm(DQ) is the compliment of Pattern(SQ) and both are the
> product of a Quality event. Pattern(Past) evolves in complexity, in exchange
> with- but limited by- the available Entropy/Data. PR-Algorithim(Future) evolves
> through layers of abstraction, becoming self-referential and ultimately infinitely
> dimensional.
>
> The MoM says that "Seed to Tree" is a symbolic metaphor for the NOW
> event at ground level- which event is the source of the branching structure
> of Mind above ground and of Matter below. PRA(Subject) is in each individual
> leaf and Pattern(Objects) is found in the roots. Subjects and Objects are
> contextual and interpenetrative. They interchange through operators like
> language. This means that Creation took place from within the NOW and
> is dimensionally incremental. A new dimension is currenly being constructed.
>
> From: The Metaphysics of Meaning: MoM. Post to Lila Squad 19/Nov98
> MoM and the above definitions Copyright (c) Fintan Mary Dunne 1998.
> No reproduction execpt within the Lila Squad for research and development.
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Love all
>
> Fintan Mary Dunne
> findunne@iol.ie
>
> homepage - http://www.moq.org
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